


unstoppable

by the_lonely_moon



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: All of the sources were conflicting, Angst, Character Death, Do you know how much research I did for this, Gen, How old is Adi Gallia?, Hurt No Comfort, I HATE THIS FANDOM SO MUCH RIGHT NOW, NO ONE KNOWS, Who is Adi Gallia’s Master?, literally no one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lonely_moon/pseuds/the_lonely_moon
Summary: The planet does not accept her the way she thinks it must’ve accepted Qui-Gon. Vines catch in her head-tendrils, moss squelches unpleasantly beneath her feet. No glaring lights or mystical spirits guide her to where her predecessor must have traversed, so she leaves after a good three days.The Force has always spoken to him in a way it does not the many others. She is not surprised this forgotten world does as well.Or: me deciding that Adi Gallia is too badass to not have more fics about her, and then writing the whole goddamn thing in two days.
Relationships: Adi Gallia & Mace Windu, Adi Gallia & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Adi Gallia & Qui-Gon Jinn
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	unstoppable

**Author's Note:**

> CW // major character death, depression, unhealthy coping methods

_ In the Before, the Temple is full of Jedi. _

Force-users of all ages, races, and genders roam the halls day in and day out, golden light spilling over them and showering them with warmth as they move about their daily duties. Blood has yet to be spilled, people have yet to be corrupted. Trebala blossoms flower in the many gardens of the Temple, for those who have the privilege of living there.

In the period of Before, things are  _ perfect.  _ Or, as close to perfect as can be imagined. Adi Gallia is born in this time, this flawless picture of beauty and grace and everything in between.

She doesn’t get to live in it for very long.

~

Childhood is fuzzy, to her. She vaguely remembers the melody of an old, Tholothian lullaby— her mother, maybe, or a hired nursemaid. She does not recall ever being brought to the Temple; it’s as if she was always there in the first place, like she was simply born into the Order instead of being taken away from her family before she could even talk.

High-pitched giggles, delighted shrieks— this is what fills the space of her youth, these memories of pure, virgin joy. It is gilded in riches, covered in jewels; precious, in the way only children know.

Innocence and naïveté are not two separate things— Adi is not as wise as she wishes to be, not as powerful as she hopes to become. Her aggression is her strength, and yet she knows that will get her nowhere in the Jedi Order. Her infancy is beautiful, but it is her nature to always want more; this galaxy is good, yes, but she can make it  _ better. _

Ambition is her lover, kindness is her best friend. In this glittering age of serenity, the two traits are not as separate as one might expect them to be.

The High Council watches to determine which will take over the other.

~

Growing up is a slow process, but Adi is patient. She attends classes in the morning, trains for hours upon hours in the afternoon. It is grueling, repetitive work, and oftentimes she finds herself wanting nothing more than to simply lay in bed and nap for the next millennia, but the changes in her physical form tell a drastic story in its effect. Her head-tendrils begin to lengthen, the baby fat starts to melt from her cheeks. She is told by many a Senator that it is a shame she is a Jedi— she is far too beautiful to go to waste.

The compliments are nice, if a little unsettling. She decides to ignore them; why should she let their words bother her when the Order is exactly where she belongs?

(They cut her just a little deeper than they should.)

She longs for the day when she will finally be able to hold a saber in her hand, feel the weight of the cool metal against her palm.

Qui-Gon lets her touch his, but it is distinctly different from having one of her own. The older Jedi is kind, but the kyber residing inside his blade is anything but. It hums in annoyance each time her fingers meet the grip of the hilt— to be quite honest, Adi doesn’t like it either.

She gets her own lightsaber when she turns fifteen.

Illum teaches her confidence, trust. She is led through fake doorway after fake doorway until she finally closes her eyes and picks the direction her heart tugs her to.

She finds the shard not two minutes later.

It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen; the song of her crystal is much different from that of Qui-Gon’s. She tells him this when she gets back, and he laughs. “That’s because it’s  _ yours.”  _ He replies, and she feels waves of pride crash against her chest at the mere statement.

She feels indomitable, with her saber in hand and her eyes focused on the horizon. 

The galaxy lies before her, presenting her with chances. She’d be a fool not to chase after them.

~

The problems start when she is nineteen. It’s nothing too significant— not truly, not yet. But Qui-Gon goes missing for nearly two months before returning to the Temple a little older and a little more tired than before. He doesn’t talk like he used to, doesn’t look her in the eyes anymore. He is her closest friend, and yet he has never felt further away.

They joke the same, they laugh the same, but if Adi looks closer, she can see the unsettling glimmer of knowledge hidden in her comrade’s pupils, the way he pushes Obi-Wan harder and faster than ever before. His Padawan is frustrated, and Adi is confused.

“What happened to you?” She whispers to him one day, when they are alone in his quarters and the afternoon tea lies untouched between them.

He seems to blank for a moment before forcing a smile onto his features. Exhaustion echoes across his features, but she dares not say a word. “Nothing, Adi. What are you going on about?”

A pit begins to open up in her chest, yet she mirrors his strained grin with one of her own. She wonders if he can tell the difference anymore, or if he has become blind to emotion the same way she has become so proficient at masking it.

“Never mind. What was it you wanted me to help with?”

He brightens, and she can almost imagine he is not an entirely different person from the one she had once loved like a father.

She does not sleep that night, but she does hack into Qui-Gon’s ship log.  _ Dagobah  _ glares up at her from her datapad, and she sneaks out of her room early the next morning. 

The planet does not accept her the way she thinks it must’ve accepted Qui-Gon. Vines catch in her head-tendrils, moss squelches unpleasantly beneath her feet. No glaring lights or mystical spirits guide her to where her predecessor must have traversed, so she leaves after a good three days.

The Force has always spoken to him in a way it does not the many others. She is not surprised this forgotten world does as well.

~

She is knighted half a year later.

Neither Master Windu and Qui-Gon show up at the knighting ceremony. She learns, later, that her Master had been helping Knight Billaba that day, though the crushing feeling of disappointment still sits heavily in her chest. 

No one knows where Qui-Gon went.

She notes, dully, that Master Dooku has changed his lightsaber hilt. It is curved, now. An interesting choice, considering it is often thought of as the make of the Fallen. She pointedly ignores it when he is brought forth to sever the silka bead chain from her cranium scales, a tradition that should have been reserved for her Master.

(The blade accidentally cuts a bit into her right cheek. She ignores that, too.) 

~

Her saber is blue when Qui-Gon dies. Perhaps that doesn’t mean much to most people, but it does to her.

Her green one is long gone, lost somewhere in the depths of Mon Cala after a particularly disastrous mission with Siri. She misses it— partially because it was her first crystal, but mostly because the color connected her to Qui-Gon. She used to hate being inferior to him, used to despise the fact that his natural-born talent would always outclass her skill, no matter how hard she worked.

She also loathed how distant he was, near the end of his life. Now, that petty, childish jealousy claws at her gut and dissolves into regret.

Obi-Wan would traditionally take his Master’s sword upon himself, but the older boy takes one look at the metallic cylinder and shakes his head, paling considerably. She volunteers to take it instead.

Dooku steps between her and the lightsaber just as Master Yoda presents her the hilt.

“You have already built a new blade,” he points out, and something she can’t quite identify begins to simmer in her chest. “I will take it. He was  _ my  _ Padawan, after all.”

Later, she will regret punching him so hard his nose begins to bleed, but in the moment, red fills her vision and her temper gets the better of her.

It is a wonder Obi-Wan does not step in to help his Grandmaster, and yet he does not seem inclined to Dooku anymore. Adi, after all, is the closest thing he has to a sister. She supposes even he has a little trouble with his attachments from time to time.

She wishes she can find it in herself to reprimand him for it, but for now her bones are tired and the funeral pyre burns just a little too brightly for her liking.

They knight her Padawan sometime in the next two months, though the entire experience blurs together as her grief consumes her day-to-day routine.

All she knows for certain is that the pity feels suffocating. 

~ 

_ In the Inbetween, the Temple no longer feels like home. _

Each day feels slower and heavier than the last. She lets herself fall into an abyss of anger and stress and mourning— she has become a bad Jedi, even she can see this much. Obi-Wan takes over her duties for a bit, on top of caring for Anakin and dealing with the grief of losing his Master. She is too wrapped up in the dark of her emotions to think straight, to do things the way she normally can.

She is treading dangerously on the brink of sanity, she can feel it. Her blade dances between purple and blue on good days— on bad ones, it illuminates her features in crimson light and she will spend hours desperately trying to revert it back to the azure color she has come to depend on as her one connection to reality.

She only truly wakes up when Dooku falls.

Suddenly, she has something to  _ do,  _ something to chase, someone to blame. Dooku is her savior, in some sick, perverted way. The newfound energy fuels her, and her lightsaber stops flickering between colors.

Cerulean light returns to her crystal, her eyes, her markings as she forces herself back into the life of a Jedi. She is not the same person she was months prior, but she is better than the one she had fallen to in her own dark, unsettling room.

She has not lost her way just yet. 

~

For eight more years, the galaxy enjoys relative peace. True, there is the looming threat of the Sith on the horizon, but Dooku has not shown his face for some time now and as far as Adi can tell, the Dark side has yet to bleed into the aura of the Temple.

She does not, however, let her guard down just yet. There is something coming, she can feel it. Young Skywalker is not so young anymore— the day of reckoning draws ever closer.

Until then, she supposes there is nothing to do but wait. 

~

“How long do you think this will last?” Her former Master has not spoken to her outside of Council meetings since she was twenty-five— she is surprised he has found the motivation to now. The beginnings of a war, she supposes, is more than enough to spark a (barely) friendly discussion between mutuals.

She chooses her phrasing carefully before speaking.“Master Windu, I am not quite sure it will ever end.” He rounds on her, features set in a permanently annoyed expression.

“What do you mean by that?”

She laughs bitterly at the question, the effects of Geonosis still clawing at her psyche and physical body. “You cannot be serious.”

His eyes narrow even more, which she hadn’t realized was possible. “Deadly.”

Her head-tendrils flare in annoyance, but she doubts he knows her anatomy well enough to discern her less-than-amicable emotions.

“Master Windu, can you not feel it? The galaxy is holding its breath— the war we have begun is biding its time. The blood, the screams— surely you’ve seen it, too?” The look on his face tells her all she needs to know. “Ah. Tell me, which planet do you believe we will campaign for next?”

He pauses for a moment before sighing. “Christophsis has come to me often in my slumber.”

“So you are not as much of a fool as I had once imagined.”

The air between them sours. “Mind your place,  _ Master  _ Gallia.”

“What a threat. Are you a little too tired for a confrontation today? I’m sure the effort of killing a total of  _ three  _ people this afternoon was  _ really difficult on you. _ ”

The hallway seems to close in around them; night air whips at their robes and Adi cocks her head to the side. Her old Master does not frighten her anymore— she would love nothing more than a chance to knock his arrogant expression off his face.

“Do not test me.”

She forces a tight smile. “I wouldn’t dare.”

He snorts as his expression morphs into something more fond. “We both know that isn’t true.”

_ You don’t know what is and isn’t true for me, anymore.  _

~

The first day they ship out is not what she expects.

Her men are stoic, so she molds herself to mirror them. Her men do not joke, so she does not dare speak. Her men look determined, so she attempts to hide the fear she knows is prevalent in her eyes.

The Commander introduces himself once they reach the main battleship (she does not have the courage to call it hers just yet.)

“CC-4729, at your service, sir.” His posture is straight, his gaze is focused straight ahead. She has never been more uncomfortable in her entire life. “What are your orders?”

Disappointment claws at her chest. The soldiers are stiffer than she had imagined they would be— she wonders how they expect to emerge victorious if a strong wind comes and they do not learn how to bend with it.

“Set the hyperdrive course for Aargonar. Tell the men we leave at 0500 tomorrow.” He nods sharply, turning to the crew on the bridge.

“You heard her, men! Get to work!” Immediately, the room flies into action, and she stands awkwardly in the center of it all, her hands folded in front of her and her robes out of place amongst the sea of armor surrounding her.

The Commander taps her on the shoulder, and she turns to see him smiling gently, if a bit nervously. It’s the first time she’s seen one of them express a genuine emotion— she decides she likes it much more than the blank expressions they had worn before. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I wanted to give you this.” An arm bracer sits in his hands, a red pattern painted carefully onto the plastiod. “We know you Jedi don’t wear a lot of protection, but we figured you’d need something to cover your dominant arm in case someone shot at it. Or something.”

She stares dumbly at it for a moment before blurting out, “I’m ambidextrous, actually.”

He smiles again. “Well, the Separatists don’t know that, so they?”

She blinks, relaxing for the first time since coming aboard. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, General.” 

~

The war begins to tire her fairly quickly. Getting out of the bunk gets harder and harder as the days pass, and her previously unmarred skin now bears scars and bruises everywhere the eye can see.

She doubts anyone would call her beautiful anymore.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Being pretty isn’t exactly on the agenda when one is dodging blaster fire and screaming out commands over the boom of the cannons.

Her Commander has become her one and only confidant through the constant battles— Flick is steady, and understanding. He saves her life more than a couple times; at this point, he might be the only person she truly trusts.

He is more like her apprentice than Siri Tachi ever was, but perhaps that is simply because her former Padawan didn’t like her much anyway.

The Temple is not full anymore, on the rare occasions she is able to visit. Younglings do not race through the halls, Masters do not stop to chat in the mediation rooms, Knights do not spar in the courtyards. Everyone is silent, and cold, and dull.

Adi hates it more than anything in the world.

The galaxy she was brought up in is no more, the person she was in youth so distant from who she is now, it is almost jarring.

She wants to laugh, but she is afraid it will come out as a scream instead. Instead, she barks order after order, ignores vision after disturbing vision.

The world has changed. It would be unwise not to change with it. 

~

“Master Gallia.”

“Master Kenobi.” The two stand opposite to the other, the air between them stale and heavy. “It’s been a long time, Obi-Wan.”

He gives her a tight smile, and she can feel her chest tighten with longing— for what, she doesn’t quite know. Innocence? Childhood? The memories his very existence brings back?

“It has indeed.” Their respective commanders look between them both, as if silently requesting a backstory Adi would rather not give. “I have something for you, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He reaches into his robes, pulling out a familiar metal cylinder. “I heard your lightsaber has been having issues, and I know he would’ve wanted you to have it, so . . .”

_ Oh.  _

Her breath catches in her throat, and she pauses for a little too long before taking the hilt slowly. “How?” Her voice is too hoarse, too fragile. She loathes this feeling, like the world might crumble beneath her feet should she take one wrong step.

She hates being weak, hates being anything other than unstoppable. In this galaxy, it is the only way to survive— and war is all about survival.

He watches her fiddle with the weapon, an emotion she can’t quite identify flickering across his features. “Master Yoda gave it to me, after Dooku fell. I figured . . . I figured you’d been separated from it for long enough.”

She activates the blade, fully expecting the crystal to deny her once more.

It doesn’t. The kyber hums alongside her own, and the color shifts from green to blue before her very eyes. Obi-Wan chuckles.

“Shall we get underway, then?”

His reaches for her hand, like he once did when they were just Obi and Adi, the pair of mischievous younglings that Master Jinn loved just a little too much.

She swallows. His palm is still too cold, his fingers still long enough to encircle the entirety of her palm. “Yes. I suppose we should.” 

He doesn’t feel quite like her older brother anymore— she imagines they’ve been apart for too long to constitute that type of connection— but the frayed bond between them has not yet severed completely. The thread is worn, and dirty, but if she brushes off the old dust, it still thrums with golden light.

He smiles once more, and this one is far more genuine than the last. “Then let’s go.” 

~

_ In the After, the Temple is merely a distant vault of memories. _

Pain fills her senses, and she falls to the ground, Qui-Gon’s lightsaber slipping out of her grip.

_ Oh,  _ she thinks, head spinning and vision blurring.  _ So this is what it feels like to die. _

She hears Obi-Wan scream, and she is suddenly reminded of the world of her childhood— her companion’s horrified, guttural screech turns into a shriek of laughter, Maul’s battle cry transforms into a high-pitched giggle akin to that of an infant.

In the After, Adi is returned to the Before for a second, a minute, an hour, a lifetime. Qui-Gon bandages her knee after a particularly nasty fall, Master Windu cuts the Padawan braid from her cranium scales like he was always meant to, Siri looks at her with admiration instead of disgust— she had forgotten this, the beauty of peacetime.

She closes her eyes.  _ The Trebala blossoms are beautiful today. _

**Author's Note:**

> HEY, I’M ALIVE Y’ALL.
> 
> To answer a common question: no, I will not be reposting my previous works nor will I email them to people who want to read it. I deleted them for a reason, respect that please.
> 
> Also, Adi Gallia’s age is so fucking confusing? One source says she was 70+ when she died, another says she was younger than 40, no one seems to agree on who her Master was— I’m so goddamn tired, you don’t even know.
> 
> Anyway, come yell at me on [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/_thelonelymoon_) or Discord [The Lonely Moon#9747].


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